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Biography

I was trained at the Universities of British Columbia and Toronto before coming to Aberdeen at the beginning of 2008. Most of my long-standing research interests involve two themes: the place of religion in social life, and our fundamental theories of the social world.  I have also spent a lot of time thinking about metaphors in religious thought and practice, as well as in scholarly theories of religion, which tends to bridge theory and the study of religion.  I am not committed to a particular methodological approach having done quantitative, qualitative, and historical research, and think it is most important for methods to be appropriate to the questions we're asking.

Empirical projects have included a study of conflict in the Anglican Communion (with Christopher Brittain, University of Toronto), and a number of quantitative projects involving secondary data analysis. These have included forays into demography of religion (especially in sub-Saharan Africa), and the use of latent class analysis to reconsider analyses that have previously used constructed continuous scales. I'm fascinated by the hidden qualitative distinctions that can be uncovered this way, and the way that they help us to see old theories in new lights.

I am an experienced PhD supervisor, and I am happy to hear from prospective PhD students interested in either sociology of religion (especially religion and conflict, sexuality, Anglican/Episcopal churches, evangelicalism, historical sociology of religion, sociology of gods, secularization) or theory (especially critical or classical theory), or the points where either of these areas of research intersect with concerns that might normally be seen as 'literary' preoccupations (rhetoric, metaphor, narrative). Please take a look at my publication list and see if you think there might be a good fit with the doctoral research you might wish to undertake. 

Current Research

Current and ongoing research interests include:

• The work of Max Weber, Karl Marx, Pierre Bourdieu, Paul Ricoeur, Shailer Mathews, Emil Durkheim, Friedrich Nietzsche)

• The rise of monotheism; god metaphors; theories of secularization; religion and conflict

• Christian traditions and communities, especially Anglicans and Episcopalians, Evangelicalism, Catholicism
• Historical Sociology, latent class and latent profile modelling, religious demography.

Teaching Responsibilities